While game mods may not be as frequently mentioned as homebrew such as emulators, it’s important to note that they still exist in the PSVita scene. To make everybody more aware of these, in this article we’ll be looking at “Superbeat Xonic Extended”, a custom DLC pack that’s showing some promise, and a recently released Puyo Puyo Tetris English translation!

Superbeat Xonic Extended in the works – A DLC pack by Nkekev with plans to include 41 songs

Superbeat: Xonic is a rhythm game by Nurijoy that was orginally released for the PSVita in 2015. This game comes with 50 built-in songs to beat but it also offers 6 DLC packs (of 3 songs each, so a total of 18 songs) that could be purchased separately as add-ons from PSN, like many other rhythm games including the Project Diva series.

If you’re a fan of REOL, then you’ll be pleased to know that the Mid-Dev demo of Superbeat Xonic Extended includes one of her songs!

However, like all rhythm games, things could get a little boring after you beat all the songs available but thankfully, developer Nkekev has swept in to give the game some more life!

With his custom DLC project, Nkekev plans to add a staggering 41 songs to the game (21 custom songs + 20 songs from PS4 DLC) and yesterday, he released a “Mid-Dev” demo with a total of 5 songs in order to demonstrate his progress to others. The songs included in the “Mid-Dev” demo of Superbeat Xonic Extended are:

Marigold by “M2U x NICODE”

Pulses by “Sta feat. A”

VIP KID by “REOL”

Expressive Air 06 by “Yousuke Yasui”

Vertical Horizon by “Planetboom”

To learn more about this project, which is slated for release in March 2019, and grab the “Mid-Dev” demo, simply follow this link. Nkekev thanks @dots-tb for helping him make his decrypted DLC work, @Playiku for graphics-related things and the Kancolle Kai Discord Server for emotional support.

English translation for Puyo Puyo Tetris recently released

Unfortunately, translation projects sometimes tend to get covered under lots of other news and usually don’t get enough attention. However, Reddit user ‘fliphat’ was nice enough to share news of the Puyo Puyo Tetris English translation with us all so that people can enjoy its creator’s work. Puyo Puyo Tetris is a Tetris-Puyo Puyo crossover by SEGA released in 2014 which recently received a Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows port thanks to its popularity.

Puyo Puyo Tetris got ports across 8 platforms and now, the PSVita one is playable in English! (Image shown is the game being emulated in Ryujinx, a Switch emulator)

While this is all well and good, there’s one problem with some of its ports and this is that they’re in Japanese only. Unfortunately, the PSVita port, is one of these and due to this, Western audiences couldn’t fully enjoy the game. Now, that problem is no more because,like the Wii U and 3DS ports, the PSVita version got a translation!

The Vita English translation, by “Froid_San”, is pretty thorough and includes translations for:

Menu images and text

Story Mode

Arcade Mode

Online Mode

Ad-hoc Mode

Tutorial

An optional dub to replace the Japanese voices with English ones from the PC version

Currently, the translation has a few small issues and some untranslated things but it’s good enough for general use. To grab the translation, follow this link and apply it to your game via RePatch. The author of the translation suggests getting the game from illegitimate sources but please, don’t engage in piracy and grab a legal copy as it only costs around $26 on PlayAsia (link not sponsored).

Conclusion

If you encounter any issues with the mods above, report them to their respective authors by follow the in-line links.

I'm a girl that's liked technology from day 1. Mostly interested in the PSVita/PSP scene but I've always modded my stuff when it's possible, that is :)Contact me via DM at @KawaiiAuroraA on Twitter if you have any questions/concerns about my articles or if you have any article requests.

^This! I know that you view all form of piracy/”abandonware”/etc as bad Aurora (and you need to present that view), but buying JP copies mostly benefit exporters like PlayAsia/Nin Nin Game/etc, while buying copies of the game in the Americas and Europe will show Sega that there is interest in the game in the West. Unofficial cross-play =p

To be honest there’s a propper realase of puyo puyo tetris port (and other of myprojects) on legitimate sites like on gbatemp that i’ve includes propper instruction from ripping the cart, decrypting it and applying a propper xdelta patch. You guys might want to link that instead.